In the meantime, it’s important to talk to your paint dealer about the time window allowed between the primer and paint topcoat. Some are a few hours; others allow several days. The Self Etch Primer is a good first step for bare metal, or an Epoxy Primer. Self Etching Primer is a first-step coating that provides excellent adhesion to bare substrates. Hope this helps, Mark A high-quality formulation allows for maximum adhesion under all types of automotive finishes on plastics, fiberglass, bare steel, aluminum and stainless steel surfaces. Exercise care when using this product over enamel finishes as lifting may occur. To get the primer to stick over paint could take up to four or five layers before being able to fully stick and cover up the under paint. Typically the next step is apply a primer surfacer, 2-3 coats then block sand with 320-grit. Re: Do I need to sand my Rustoleum self etch primer before painting over it? Self Etching You can apply it over paint or bondo but it is only effective on bare metal. It can’t be an epoxy primer, but it can be a urethane primer. Putting more of the primer won’t make it work better. Eastwood's Self-Etching Primer is lacquer-based. Dupli-Color® Self-Etching Primer etches and primes bare metal in one step, making it ideal to use as the first step in all automotive priming projects and for use on spot repairs. Self etching only needs to be applied to Bare Aluminum. Self-etching primers have to have another primer over the top of them or the paint won’t adhere. Epoxy works pretty good over Acid etch as the epoxy does not tend to melt the etch like, say a 2k primer would, only issue will be is the etch is the weakest link but normally OK, if done this way. This Self-Etching primer uses an aggressive solvent system to assure excellent adhesion to clean, rust-free metal. Once applied and dried (couple of hours) Use a 3m Scotch Brite pad to knock down any nibs and then shoot the Bare metal primer over the entire Prepped(Acetone wipe down) surface. Just make sure you shoot the first coat of epoxy with NO reducer, just 1:1 with activator. (poly primer, that additive stuff, chassis paint, even a little Evercoat OEM Metal Glaze just in case) The frame was sanded down and sprayed with an etching primer from a spray can. This helps remove sanding scratches and small surface defects. I then use a primer sealer or epoxy primer to seal up the surface then apply the top coats. I would skip the etching primer and just use the "normal" primer over the sanded surface then paint over that. Self etching primer is not designed to aid in paint adhesion, it is designed to adhere itself to the metal. The self-etching primer is usually gray or olive drab gray but the color is just there to show you where you’ve put it on and it is very thin and one thin coat is enough. 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